


Quicksand

by Sirris_Sunless



Category: Dark Souls II
Genre: M/M, Manipulative Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:35:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28931094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirris_Sunless/pseuds/Sirris_Sunless
Summary: The love and hate relationship of the murderer and the liar. Speculation of Pate and Creighton's past.excerpt:Creighton only had to kill it a few more times and it never raised again. Then he heard the undead curse was lifted.He thought he’d die now, too. But before he could die the curse was spreading again.He took Pate’s head and wandered around. Creighton only spoke to the withered skull when he forgot about him. He would ask the skull: Who are ya?And when he remembered, he’d just keep it on him.
Relationships: Creighton the Wanderer/Mild-Mannered Pate
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Quicksand

###  *Creighton*

The sound of a key turning in the lockhole forced Creighton awake. He raised his heavy eyes. The intruder was banging on the iron rails while thrusting the key inside the lock in all directions, not worried about breaking it at all. The door finally swept open as she flew in, turned back and threw it closed again. She giggled at the undead huntsman outside, who landed a heavy blow on the rails.

“Oooh.” The knightess backed up, surprised, and quickly sent two bolts into the enemy. Dusting her hands as she came close to the bonfire, she gasped again.

“Oh! I didn’t expect someone to be in here.”

“Who are you?” Creighton returned her stare warily, “I thought you were that bastard for a moment.”

She swung the prison key on the tip of her forefinger. Once they were trapped for three days by a group of bandits. On the third night, Pate took out a master key and swung it just like that.  _ I’ve seen the guards. One on the left outside our cell, two guarding the door, four loitering around in the outer room, and then it is all up to our luck. What do you say, Hmm?  _

Creighton eyed the key on his fingertip like a stray hound that found a bone shard.

He didn’t even try to memorize any enemy position except for that first one. He broke that one’s neck, took his sword and slashed the two bandits by the door. All the other four in the room outside were awake, and moved faster than Creighton anticipated. More bandits ran in. His sword kept slamming on the wall in that tiny room. Fists, kicks and daggers landed on him like raindrops. 

To Creighton’s surprise, Pate actually fought instead of crawling down in some corner. His every thrust was sharp, too, sharp as if he was cleaning a cannon. Blood spilled from his face. Creighton saw it. He gashed an enemy open. 

“Get down! Outta my way!” He yelled.

Pate stayed low as Creighton pushed the trigger on his ring, releasing a few darts in the range of a cone. The room was at once filled with bloodied eyeballs and pained cries.

Most bandits heard the two and came to die in that room. Creighton got rid of the last enemy stuck on his sword, as he came under the night sky. Pate dropped his spear, panting, dabbing the cut on his own face with his forefinger.

“Oh… heavens, that was close... I owe you my life.”

He said. Creighton simply stared at the man’s smile. Pate reached out a hand slightly tainted by his blood:

“My name is Pate...” Then immediately he took his hand back, the charming smile still hanging on his face.

“Oh, hogwash, I already told you that earlier, haven’t I?”

The fire flickered before Creighton’s eyes.  _ Oi, you down for building a bolthole? Oh, I didn’t expect that from someone like you. Well if you don’t want it then just shut yer gob! Hah hah hah…  _ Torch sconce, fireplace, armoire, covers and sheets… and piles of fire butterflies. It was always so cold during the nights. 

The bonfire casted the shadow of the knightess onto the opposite wall. She took off her cap, curiously observing Creighton, who was walled in between two skeletons. Her amber eyes glowed from amusement.

“I joined forces with a man on the way, but he was no more than a back-stabbing knave.”

Creighton ignored her amused look, considering she just freed him.

“You be careful of him. Pate, I think he said.”

  
  


###  *Pate*

After coming to Drangleic, Pate hunted, gulled, and killed, or hunted by gulling and killing. Since he became undead he actually began to treat himself more generously, though he wouldn’t go squandering. He tempered his own indulgence with the precision of a machine, steering his share according to his travel companions: sometimes he’d pretend to be deprived. Most of the time, he’d save extra supplies for himself.

He still kept extra shares of Lifegems and souls after joining with Creighton. However, he acted unselfishly more often, especially after a good cooperation. 

He remembered the look of Creighton when he first saw the estus soup. He had never seen someone so similar to a starved hound.

A pretty fine hound covered with scars. 

Their travels were mostly smooth, all traps perfectly executed with Pate’s scheme and Creighton’s axe. Occasionally Pate would prank his partner, not joining the fight till he got a few bruises, or trapping him in a contraption for a little while. He did it to entertain himself, and to test Creighton’s reaction, which usually, greatly entertained him. 

Creighton never pranked him back --- his brain didn’t work that way, if it could work at all. He’d just turn to their targets, or the targets’ remains. Whenever Pate read too much rage from the movement of Creighton’s axe, he would offer a nice campfire or cook some estus soup that day.

After a period too calm to be real, they met the first piece of hard bone in their trip. It almost killed the hound, and got the master involved as well.

Pate had seen this kind, time to time, Undead with all sorts of curious weapons, dusted and uninviting. Most of them couldn’t actually swing a club. So as always, he told the Undead traveler of the treasure ahead, waiting for him to open the contraption, lure out the enemies, and then Creighton could take care of the enemies, or the leftover traveler. 

“There's treasure this way… But I've a bad feeling about it. I don't quite have the guts myself! Hah hah…”

He laughed half-heartedly as he leaned against the wall. 

The Undead replied with a blow, maybe a sneer under the hood as well.

Pate was fast enough to doge the blow. The giant club hit the wall, sparkling some stone fragments. Creighton heard the clash and swiftly joined the brawl. Pate sneaked out of the room as hair-raising clatters echoed behind. He found a way to the upper floor and set off some barrels. At the moment he pushed down the barrels, he told Creighton to get away.

He saw the Mirrah knight force-stopped all his attacks and rolled back, striving to obey his words.

Pate smiled, pleased.

“You fofofofooking bastard, ra-ran off by yourself!?”

A half naked Creighton roared, shuddering from the cold. Snowflakes fell on his healing scars and bruises, triggering a shiver with each fall.

“Well I found the barrels in time, didn’t I?”

Pate replied as he stirred the bland estus soup. This bonfire was too weak, pitiful even.

“Ya dirty rat.” 

The Undead knight couldn’t do much damage with his great club in a tiny room. Creighton made it with a few marks. But he was surely enraged. He put the chainmail back on and went to sleep without touching the estus soup, his precious battle axe left on the ground. 

Pate gazed thoughtfully at the Crescent axe. Usually it would be in Creighton’s arms. He finished his share of the soup, and then lay down behind the Mirrah knight. 

The chainmail embraced the man’s form, revealing each convex of every group of muscle. The soft material wrapped tightly but lightly around every trembling line on him. Pate always thought certain clothing could be more shameless than no clothes at all.

“You cold?” He asked.

“Non-non of yer fooking business.”

Pate didn’t take off his gloves. He warmed them by the fire and came close to Creighton from behind. Those pecs jolted at once under his sudden touch. Pate pressed on and glided his palms upward, following the curve, all the way to Creighton’s jawline, caressing the rough scars on his chin. Creighton flipped like a startled fish. 

“Wot the fook is wrong with you?! Don’t you touch me, ya slimy toad!”

Before Pate could react, Creighton flipped again and rolled away. He looked like he was about to explode. He has never done it with a man, Pate reckoned, or never done it at all. He’d better be left alone under this circumstance. He might regret it later, or not, didn’t matter. Pate didn’t join force with him just to offer that. 

Pate raised his hands in surrender, even scooching backward to leave more space in between them. Then he turned to face the fire. Warm flames danced outside his closed eyelids. No matter how much time he had spent next to a bonfire, it’d never be enough. Pate sighed in contentment. 

He heard chainmail shuffling and shifting. That idiot won’t be able to sleep tonight. How dumb, really. WIth a man or a woman, it is all the same, just the business between two lower halves, an insignificant, vile thing --- Pate ridiculed.  _ You think I want to do this you think it’s easy for me to feed both of us if it is not you I’d be fucking resting in peace _

Right when he was about to fall asleep, Pate felt a tug on his shoulder. He shifted reluctantly and raised an arm over his eyes.

“What... Changed your mind? Better wait till tomorrow...”

The other man replied with a heavy pant, strong hands gripping his shoulder, and then a clash between their teeth, a kiss more similar to a bite than a nibble. Half asleep, Pate curled his tongue up, brushing it across Creighton’s cold, hard teeth. The Mirrah knight’s breath grew heavier. 

Well that was a quick surrender, or not? Didn’t matter. Eyes half-lidded, the mild-mannered man lazily gave in to the kiss. 

###  *Creighton*

It wasn’t after he walked half a mile, killed ten undeads and two hounds, Creighton remembered he didn’t really know where to go. He saw a poisonous butterfly, which reminded him of insects, then of bugs, and then of the spiders at their dwelling.

Spiders and quicksand, both irritating like that bastard, stick down their prey.

After a short while, Creighton met the knightess who saved him from the cell earlier. He asked her about a place full of spiders and a whirl of quicksand. 

“Yeah right.” She found the situation amusing once again, “I’ve circled around this woods for ten times and I still get lost.”

Creighton simply glared at her, quiet. It was what he did to Pate whenever he didn’t know what to do. Figuring things out was never his job. The knightess was not Pate, but it didn’t matter. 

At the same time he was upset, though. He didn’t want to think of Pate that often. What good could it do, thinking about the number one on his revenge list? 

The knightess stared back at him. Eventually she proposed, “Well you can join me. I go wherever the roads take me, so we will find him someday, I suppose.”

Yeah even I can fooking think of that, Creighton thought. He only hoped she had the slightest sense of direction. The Undeads never age or die so they have all the time in the world, but he was not known for patience.

The knightess said she came to Drangleic to seek a cure for the curse. The two fought a bunch of skeletons and arrived at a poisonous swamp area. From a torn sack, she took out a few mosses and gave him half, an act too generous for someone who couldn’t even afford to burn a torch. How different, Creighton thought. He could never figure out how much supplies that man hid.

“When I first met Pate, he said he has your ring.” The woman insisted on panting and talking in the toxic water. “You also said he has a peculiar ring. What sort of accessory is it?”

“Can’t tell ya that.” Creighton replied, “You’ll know it when it’s shot into your face.”

“Shot into my face? Oh, so a ring designed to release ammo?”

“...”

“Did he trick you for it? Stole it?” She asked, “... he couldn't have robbed it from you, could he?”

Creighton got that ring of thorns from one of his victims. 

When he got caught by the Mirrah knights, he hid the ring under his tongue and sneaked it into the prison, so in fact he could have gotten away whenever he wanted. He stayed in the cell till two days before the execution, mainly because he wanted the last meal. 

But he didn’t get the last meal, instead he found a dark sigil on his skin.

Creighton had seen many cursed ones. Some were repelled by the locals, rolling away in humiliation, covered in rotten eggs. Some were sent off by their family, old nobles weeping even after the young cursed ones went miles away. Those with some decency would quietly leave without a word, and nobody’d go seek them. In Mirrah, catching the undead curse was a major dishonor. No knight badge could cover up that one wretched brand.

And then they began to torture the Undeads, hammering their souls out of their bodies, as they could not die.

That was why Creighton ran away, never inconvenienced by the curse --- can’t die, can’t get sick, doesn’t need to eat and can live with little sleep, one is rid of all troubles that came with life.

He heard the land of Dran something to the West was full of danger, so he came here, said to hone his blade, actually just to get more murders. 

Creighton enjoyed his life here, much more so than before. His dark sigil was on his chest, which never really held anything before. Indeed, he mentioned building a bolthole to Pate, simply because they travelled for too long and stocked up too many goods, and this place was either too hot or too cold, or seeping poison.

“Oh, I didn’t expect that from someone like you.” Pate began to troll as soon as he heard the proposall.

“Well if you don’t want it then just shut yer gob willya?” Creighton leered. Pate simply snickered.

Pate discussed the location with him. There were no more settlements in the woods; the iron keep was far too formidable. Speaking of Majula, Creighton declined without thinking: “I’m not staying there.”

That was no place for him, a place guarded by a fine young lady, a resting place for traveling knights. He didn’t care what Pate’d think. To his surprise, Pate agreed, never talked about how gullible the knights were or how pleasant that place could be. He simply passed for this option and said:

“What about… Brightstone Cove?”

Creighton never really understood why. He only had a vague feeling, that this swindler with a silver tongue might be his same kind. 

“... the Brightstone Cove.”

Creighton uttered, out of nowhere. The knightess pulled her rapier out of a hollow, splashing the water around them. 

“What was that?”

Torch sconce, fireplace, armoire, covers and sheets… and piles of flame butterflies. 

And Pate’s books too. He couldn’t believe the guy collected  _ books _ , for gods’ sake, at the place too. Pate merely smirked at Creighton’s provocation.  _ The silver tongue doesn’t come from nothing.  _ The fire burned strongly in their room, filling it with feverish heat. They’d been moving stuff for a whole day, both covered by dust, but neither of them cared, lurching into one another and then right into bed after stripping off their gloves and armors. The broken door wasn’t even locked. Wind was hurling outside with the ever blowing quicksand, reverberating with their love-making.

Creighton woke up in a banging sound the next day. It was Pate fixing the broken door.

“The Brightstone Cove. That bastard is at Brightstone Cove!”

His memories returned so suddenly. He almost forgot how Pate tricked him and he was going to kill that man. Creighton wrapped his fingers tightly around the axe, his knuckles cracking and his eyes hotted up.

“I’m leaving.”

He made a sharp turn out of the pool, ignoring the baffled calls from his companion. 

###  *Pate*

Five months and seven days. Pate almost forgot to count at times as he grew too comfortable with his circumstance. And  _ that _ was alarming. He shouldn’t be like those amnesic undeads. He used to record each day after coming to Drangleic.

The doors were fixed. Spiders no longer crawled in. The blacksmith across their place sold unlimited flame butterflies. Their dwelling was secured.

They retained the business of gulling and killing. After clearing areas around Brightstone Cove, they’d occasionally go somewhere further, like the Shaded Woods. The business was smooth as always.

Until they encountered an old friend.

Creighton was fully focused on his brawl with the roaming soul archer. When Pate saw the invader’s familiar great club, he cursed his own luck. 

The woods provided no constraint for the great club’s range. Pate dodged his first blow, crushed a lifegem, and held up his shield to block the second blow. The giant club swiped across, broke his stance and sent him flying.

The ground bounced Pate up and down. His chest was broken, and now his back. Pate felt like a ragged sack filled with broken bones. He licked his lips and tasted blood, while an undead shouldn’t taste anything at all.

The invader walked towards him, every step shaking the earth. Pate struggled to keep his eyes open and reached for his spear. The club came right above his head and he still hadn’t reached it. Maybe it was only an inch away, maybe it was miles away, maybe he wouldn't be able to reach it anymore. 

“Pate!!!”

He heard Creighton roaring. The earth quaked again as Creighton came running, leaped into the air, and carved the axe into the back of the invader’s head. Oozing blood splashed all over Pate’s face. After the invader’s remains dusted away, Creighton turned around and hurled his axe out. 

Pate saw a few bolts stuck in his back as more bolts shot this way. Creighton took them all on the chest. The roaming soul archer wasn’t dead yet, still shooting at its target.

The sound of the axe clashing with flesh was music. Creighton thudded backward onto the ground, breaking some of the bolts while the rest pierced deeper into his body.

Recovered slightly by the lifegem, Pate dragged himself to his partner.

“Wooh… that was close...” 

He smiled tiredly, trying to pull off the Mirrah knight’s mask with weak fingers. Darkened blood glued Creighton’s silver hair to thick strands. Pate’s nails dug into the scars on the metal.

Creighton opened his eyes. His eyes were a pale blue, like the glacier.

“It’s all your fooking fault.”

His voice rang coarsely but lightly in the throat.

After a few attempts, Pate finally pulled off that damn mask and casted it aside. Then he lowered down, and sank his teeth into Creighton’s lips.

Creighton gave the ring of thorns to him afterwards.

“Take it, ya fooking wuss.” he commanded awkwardly, “I can snap yer damn shield with two fingers.”

Pate took the ring and pressed its trigger. A few darts shot forward and scratched Creighton’s face, getting on his nerves again. Pate laughed as he told himself: it’s about time.

He led both of them back to the forest of fallen giants, said to pick up some remaining loot. He waited till Creighton stepped one foot into the gate, and warned gingerly: “The gate will be closed by the contraption.”

As he expected, the Mirrah knight, lacking a brain as ever, paid no mind to what he said at all, only started yelling after the gate shut down behind him:

“Hey, ya bastard! Let me out!”

“I warned you. You went in yourself --- behind you ---”

Pate shrugged as a response, enjoying the sight of Creighton flooded by a horde of hollowed soldiers. 

_ Cut your losses when you can I tell you if I knew better I should have brought it off no I shouldn’t have gave it to that son of a bitch at the first place _

Creighton was just badly off, Pate thought. And that was different from being debased.

###  *Creighton*

Creighton didn’t want to kill Pate at the Huntsman’s Copse. He was just trying to teach him a lesson by getting him locked up for a while.

When Pate showed up, Creighton depleted his pathetic rhetoric to get him to rest at the particular bonfire, while thinking he went way too soft on this man. When Pate trapped him, he had to circle around the building, a strategy he despised, to do away with those hollows, but this cell contained no enemies. There was even a bonfire here, and two skeletons for Pate’s entertainment.

Pate easily saw through his “scheme”. He gave Creighton a back-stab and closed the prison door. Creighton darted to the rails and bawled: “Oi you better watch it! Do you seriously want some?” And shook the rails with full force. Pate just eyed the twitching muscle on his forearms, and curled his lips coldly. 

Creighton ceased moving. He was getting tense.

“Pate,” he commanded with a deep voice, searching for Pate’s eyes with his own, “Let me out.”

Pate hooked the cell key from his belt. Assuring that Creighton could see clearly, he tossed it into the bushes. The Mirrah knight slammed his axe on the rails, eyes bloodshot. Pate reached in his hand to lightly pat his masked face. Creighton swung at him. The ring of thorns shot a few darts and forced him to back up.

“You’re the one who wanted to trap me first.” Pate said with his usual idle tongue. ”Enjoy your rest in there, my friend.”

Creighton allowed himself to have only one thought after that: kill Pate.

He left for the Brightstone Cove. He got lost very so often and wandered wherever the roads led to, then followed the direction that evoked little impression in mind. He arrived at a military camp area. Two pigs hurtled toward him and knocked him down.

He didn’t remember any of the soldiers, but he remembered these two pigs, 

Creighton killed the pigs and the hollowed soldiers. Undeads’ blood could not really flow, oozing and dark, which made him miss the spraying fountains under his axe in the past. In the old times people’s cries were so much better too: apologizing, begging, calling to mommy, cursing him… The hollows nowadays only knew to growl. This damn curse. I wouldn't have come to this Drang shithole if not for this curse, or met that bastard, and I could have enjoyed my meal...

The soldier’s corpses scattered all over, mostly sliced in half, dried guts spilling languidly. They might get back to their feet again, or not. Creighton stepped on one on the stomach. His chainmail boots wrapped his feet nicely in elegant curves, decorated by a few drops of blood, stylish, really ---

“What are you doing here?”

He recalled that Mirrahn woman’s voice. Human voice sounded so strange to him, banging his ears like a blacksmith’s hammer.

“Is this all your doing?”

She pointed at the disemboweled corpses on the floor, blood dripping down his axe.

“So wot?” Creighton grunted. His own voice sounded strange as well. 

That woman was dressed in Mirrah knight’s uniform, a Mirrah Greatsword fastened to her waist. Her accent was flawless and graceful. Maybe she even served in the war, pointing down her sword at those from the borderland. The louts, murderers, rapists, bandits. Creighton tightened his grip on the axe, planning his movement against that greatsword.

But she did not attack. She even snickered a little as she remarked the prisoner’s garb on him.

“You better find something else to wear.”

None of your fooking business, it’s all your doing, you knights. Creighton began to rage while she knew nothing about it. She simply sighed and took off her hat, reaching to wipe the blood off his cheeks. Creighton saw that her face was branded by the dark sign, the flesh around it withering. So he stayed still and quiet.

Her fingers were covered by callus, and ice cold. They remained on his skin for a second. Then she took out a set of armor from her pack and threw it in front of him.

“Take it.” She sneered. “It’s just an imitation we crafted, before we entered the rank. We make no use of it now, and it might keep you sane for a little longer… heh heh.”

Her voice was chilly, metallic even, every syllable rang like two swords clashing. So wot if I stay sane longer. Undeads don’t die they just become hollowed.

And so wot if they become hollowed, Creighton thought.

  
  


###  *Pate*

Pate returned to the Brightstone Cove to pack his belongings. He planned to move, though he’d miss the books and flame butterflies here. The wheezing sound of the quicksand could be soothing at night too, if one gets used to it, especially to someone like him who grew up in woman’s faked moans.

He didn’t really want to kill Creighton. He had disposed two of his past partners, one who wanted to swipe the loot, the other one wanted to rape him. Thinking of their last screeches always brought him joy. But then he thought of Creighton’s cuss and commands. His smile disappeared. 

No, Pate. No. You lived a fruitful five months and seven days, obtained a useful ring, ten thousand souls, two hundred lifegems and fifty packs of repair power. Not bad at all. If he was in the mood he’d even leave some for Creighton --- if any idiot came to his rescue.

Creighton returned sooner than he anticipated, almost shocked him. Pate felt lost when he came in, but regained his composure right away.

“Took you long enough.” He greeted as if he saw this coming.

Creighton shook with laughters, murderous ones. Pate had seen this sort of laugh many times, but it was never directed to him, only to their prey.

“What now? Are you going to kill me?” Pate lay down his arms while all his muscles tensed up. “You going hollow? Or simply mad?”

Creighton glared into his eyes as his laugh concluded.

“Ya’ve got nothing to explain?”

Explain for what? That was Pate’s first thought. Then he met the other man’s glare and waved smartly, putting on a diplomatic smile.

“Well, what misunderstanding could have caused this! I simply wanted to pull a prank. Then I had to defend myself, from your trap.”

The room was quiet for a moment. He could hear wind howling and the quicksand whirling non stop. Pate felt as if he was walking on the edge of that sand whirl, blown by the wind.

“... And?” Creighton pressed.

“What do you mean?” Pate couldn’t hold his smile for much longer. “I’ll go, after I take my things. Your lifegems and powders are yours. This little pied-à-terre, if you like, is also yours to keep. Is that not enough?”

He still looked at Creighton in the eyes. A good liar had to learn to meet anyone’s eyes, and to keep a sincere smile,

But gradually he just saw the vast sand whirl revolving, catching him in it. 

He was replied by a punch in the face. Pate plunged without thinking, grabbed his weapons, and swung at Creighton. The spear thrust into his left shoulder. Pate then Creighton still held his axe pointed to the floor, unmoved at all. But it was too late, all too late. He lifted the axe just now.

Pate heard the door turned open, followed by a familiar female voice inquiring about what happened. It was her, the knightess he met in the forest and the Earthen Peak. Pate implored:

“He swung at me! Please, lend me a hand!”

Creighton let out a roar of rage and darted towards him. The knightess didn’t interfere, so Pate fended him off alone. The more he used the shield the more confident he grew --- Creighton had no shield. A wild hound does not know to defend. A wild hound’s every dodge and turn is for attacking from a new direction, and a wild hound only appears to be frightening. He could only prey upon some hollows holding broken wood. Creighton’s frustrated “Damn! You're tougher than you look” made him snicker even more. He blocked his axe without much effort, and his spear thrusted faster and faster, releasing more and more force with each onslaught.

Is this how it feels? Is this what Creighton felt so addicted to? Heh Heh… Indeed. Thick, dark blood splashed from his wounds and spinned into a jetblack vortex before Pate. Soft sand flooded to him, covering the land and the sky, swallowing him. Every plunge Pate made was an attempt to run away for the wheezing quicksand ---

“That’s enough!”

Cold rapier stabbed him from behind and pierced through his ribs. Pate’s arm froze. The quicksand whirled across him and dissipated into nothing.

He saw the blade through his chest, blood leaking out from the injury. He saw Creighton, who was covered in blood. Pate’s grip on the spear loosened a little, but didn’t let go. So the knightess behind him turned her wrist and crushed his lungs along with his heart. His breaths began to break apart. Dried spit with blood seeped out of his teeth.

His last sight was Creighton’s murderous grin. The killer of Mirrah raised his axe high, and slashed at him.

Pate heard wind wailing pass him. He knew, just as anyone who got beheaded would.

And so, the mild-mannered Pate, child of a whore, slick schemer, murderer for pleasure, liar who gulled his way through Drangleic, died from a backstab from an upright traveling knight.

  
  


###  *Creighton*

Pate’s head and body rapidly wilted away.

Creighton laughed at first, like a lunatic. Serves him well, serves him well. He generously gave the key to their den to the bearer of the curse, but she didn’t leave even till his mood worsened.

“Wot else do ya want?” He spoke roughly.

“Your frien… I mean this Pate,” the woman pointed at the corpse under his feet, “he doesn’t have much humanity left. When he comes back, he might become a hollow.”

A hollow? Things that wander on the land, slow and laughable? Things he cut down like chopping grass?

“Then I’ll just kill him again.” Creighton said.

The woman’s carefully trimmed brow knitted together. Frowning, she gave him a good long look, and sighed.

“Well. Anyway. He won’t… he won’t keep coming back. At least it’ll stop after a while.”

She didn’t lie. Creighton only had to kill it a few more times and it never raised again. Then he heard the undead curse was lifted.

He thought he’d die now, too. But before he could die the curse was spreading again.

He took Pate’s head and wandered around. Creighton only spoke to the withered skull when he forgot about him. He would ask the skull: Who are ya?

And when he remembered, he’d just keep it on him.

Creighton roamed lands after lands. Eventually he met Rosaria, Mother of the Rebirth, in Lothric. Rosaria could not speak, neither could she bring someone back to life with a skull. But Creighton stayed to serve her anyway. He invaded everywhere, pillaged, killed and collected tongues, enjoying himself most of the time, as he couldn’t remember anything most of the time.

Once he invaded the world of a Blade of the Darkmoon. When he saw her cooperator, Creighton suddenly recalled everything.

But she no longer recognized him.

She switched her rapier to a long sword, her blade still swift, the way she crushed one’s lungs and heart by turning her wrist gentle as before. She held him down with one foot on his waist and pulled her sword out. The snowflakes of Irithyll flew slowly across his mask and melted on his eyelids.

He heard the wind blowing in Brightstone Cove again, and the wheezing sound of the quicksand at night.

That’s nice. Always slept well with that sound going out there.

Creighton closed his eyes. 


End file.
